Tensions between North and South dominated the first half of the 19th century in America. In Illinois in the 1830s and 1840s, animosity between Northern and Southern settlers rarely resulted in bloodshed, but caused mutual distrust.

Other issues besides slavery caused the rifts in Illinois. Many of the problems between the settlers were personality conflicts, differing views of the world, and clashes of backgrounds and goals.

In some ways, the distribution of Illinois population was based on geography. The northern parts of Illinois had concentrations of New Englanders and Easterners, while southern regions contained settlers from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and the Carolinas.

Southerners exerted an early influence on the state. When Illinois achieved statehood in 1818, over 80 percent of the population was of Southern heritage.

In the 1830s and 1840s, the land boom in Illinois brought an influx of settlers from New England, New York and surrounding states. Compared to their Southern counterparts, Yankee settlers were better-educated and had more money. They were hard-working and business-oriented, and they looked for ways to get ahead in the world.

The interests of society were important to Northerners, who were inclined to back higher taxes and government oversight to achieve common goals. This was reflective of the Federalism, or centralized government power, that lingered from the post-Revolutionary era.

Puritan beliefs still lingered in Northern settlers’ religions, and they viewed the world in analytical, intellectual terms. Women stood higher in Northern societies, and slavery was opposed. Temperance had a foothold in some areas. Modern transportation such as canals and railroads were favored, as were most forms of public and higher education.

Southerners, on the other hand, were mainly agricultural, working small farms to support families with an eye on little else. Individualistic and independent, Southern settlers wanted to be left alone, as many were distrustful of cities, social advancements and movements toward reform. Their lifestyle and business dealings were relaxed, informal and based more on trust than legality.

Many Southerners were Scotch-Irish or Celtic in descent, and they valued family, tradition and day-to-day life. Rivers, rather than current means of transportation, were of greater importance, while education and economic advancement were less crucial to them than Northerners.

Not surprisingly, Yankees viewed Southerners in a negative light. Words that various scholars have used to describe those opinions are “shiftless and unmotivated,” “lazy and decadent” and “stiff and proud.”

Southerners, meanwhile, saw their counterparts as “greedy, grasping peddlers who could not be trusted.” To a Southerner, being “Yankeed” was a term for being “swindled by a fast-talking salesman from the Northeast.”

On education, one Northerner quoted a Southerner who said “he don’t calculate that books and sciences will do as much good for a man … as a handy use of a rifle.”

Even personal habits were a source of contention. Southerners ate a lot of pork, cornbread and biscuits, as compared to the favored wheat of Yankees. Chewing tobacco, horse racing and broad-brimmed hats were also popular among Southerners, much to the Northerners’ disdain. Even the mustaches that Southerners wore were disliked by some Northerners.

Matters of state and national importance sometimes divided Southerners and Yankees. The slavery convention fight of 1824 was partisan along regional lines, while southern Illinoisans were less enthused about the Illinois-and-Michigan Canal and the debt that would follow.

Internal improvements on the whole were of less concern to Southerners, who were opposed to the National Bank, reflective of the views of their hero, Andrew Jackson. Northerners, on the other hand, supported national banking and high tariffs.

Though divisions had tapered off as the 1840s progressed, the re-ignition of the slavery issue in the early 1850s brought many arguments back to light. In the years that followed, the distrust among Illinoisans of Northern and Southern descent would create a divided homeland as the state joined the nation in a civil war.

Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.